Many thermography arrangements today comprise a combination of a visible light imaging system and an infrared (IR) imaging system. Since it is often hard to interpret an IR image and relate it to what is shown in a corresponding visible light (VL) image, there also exist suggestions on how analysis and interpretation of captured visible light and IR image data may be enabled. Some prior art references disclose blending or fusion of IR image data and visible light image data with the purpose of enabling easier analysis and interpretation of a depicted scene.
In prior art methods for fusion a visible light image may be scaled to match an IR image, and further aligned with the IR image, with the purpose of fusing the images into a combined image, comprising both visible light image data and IR image data. A combined image may be stored along with the captured IR and visible light images, the separate images being stored in their original captured format, thereby enabling later retrieval of the original images comprising all captured data.
However, many users of thermography systems do not use all advanced software features available in the thermography system, such as for example the possibility to combine VL image and IR image data to fuse visible light and IR image data. Instead, a user may simply use the thermography arrangement to capture image data during an extended period of time, for example an hour or a day, perhaps store the captured images and thereafter, at site or possibly at a later time, display or retrieve the images from memory for analysis. If the user sees something of interest in an IR image, for example indicating a temperature anomaly or an interesting pattern, the user may turn to a corresponding visible light image for more information on what part of the scene the interesting IR feature relates to. However, as the VL image might depict or represent a different captured view of the real world scene than the captured view of the real world scene of the IR image it is difficult for the user to relate the visible light image information to the IR image information. In addition, the interpretation of a combined IR/VL image is difficult when the VL image might depict or represent a different captured view of the real world scene than the captured view of the real world scene of the IR image.
Therefore, there still exists a need for facilitating or enabling improved analysis and interpretation of associated visible light and IR image information when the visible light image information and the IR image information are not combined into one image, for example visual light (VL) only or IR only, and when the visible light image information and the IR image information are combined into one image, for example using picture in picture, blending or fusing methods.